


just me, us, and the moon

by molotovhappyhour



Series: The End of the Day [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M, life is strange au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 22:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6168199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molotovhappyhour/pseuds/molotovhappyhour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they kissed, Levi would taste of chlorine. His lips would be warm and perfect. They’re so close, Eren can taste the future on his tongue. They’re so close, Eren can think of nothing else but kissing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just me, us, and the moon

**Author's Note:**

> it's back. the fact that i suck at posting chronologically.

It’s too cold for this time of year, though the nights are the worst. The chill ruffles Eren’s hair in a breeze as Levi unlocks the double doors into the main school building, using the keys he’d pilfered from Kenny from who _knows_ when. The breath of wind tousles Levi’s hair, too, though it seems like that’s more with affection than cold. It makes his hair ripple like leaves beneath the light of the streetlamp before they push their way into the darkness of the unlit hallway.

Levi’s eyes glitter when he stops, looking over his shoulder, pausing outside the school’s administration office.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. _You_ could get in trouble.”

(He won’t stop saying shit like that. Eren wishes that he would.)

“I know,” Eren tells him, rolling his eyes as he gestures to the office door, waiting for it to be unlocked. “But I _sure_ do want to. Besides,” he wiggles his eyebrows, hoping that Levi can see the full effect in the low light, “you’re a terrible influence on me.”

Levi laughs, elbowing him in the ribs. “Shut _up_. You’re a terrible art student, getting pulled in by a delinquent. Your weak will is _not_ my fault.”

“Nah,” Eren agrees, following Levi into the dim office lobby, lined with cubicles for the small staff. “That’s _all_ on me.” They pass by a desk stacked high with attendance excuses, unsettled by their presence. He leaves it be, stopping beside Principal Smith’s door as Levi flips through the keys on the ring, the only other sound bouncing through the cubicles being the wind outside pushing gently against the windows.

It’s weird to see a school after dark. It shouldn’t be allowed to exist properly without students inside it.

“I don’t have the fucking key,” Levi hisses after a minute or two, drowning out the keys clinking together as he flips through them a second time and then a third. “None of these fit and I don’t have the _fucking_ key. What good is that piece of shit if he doesn’t have Smith’s _key_?”

Eren squints at the keys as they toss around the emergency lighting in small flashes. “It’s not that weird though. He’s really anal about that sort of thing. Seems kinda private, you know? Doesn’t really like people in his shit.”

Levi’s voice is low and a little dangerous when he speaks next. “Yeah, I gathered as much when he didn’t lift a fucking finger to help search for Isabel.” He slams his palm against the doorknob with another swear. “Which is why we’re fucking _here_.”

(“ _they know where isabel is,_ ” Farlan had screamed, practically delirious, as he’d waved that fucking pistol around in the bathroom. “ _and what the fuck have_ you _figured out since she’s been gone?_ ”

Levi’s stricken face. Gunshot.)

“Step back,” Eren says, nudging Levi away from the door. He resists for a moment, a frown sitting heavy on his mouth. But he complies, stepping away from the door to stand closer to one of the cubicles. Concern tints his expression—or maybe that’s just the shadows hanging thick in the room.

Eren takes a step backwards of his own, shifting his backpack on his shoulders and rocking his weight back on one foot before lifting the other and thrusting forward, aiming a sharp kick at the doorknob. It caves with a sharp, almost painful, sound before rattling in its socket, slightly off-kilter.

“Eren, what the _fuck_? We’re breaking in with _keys_ , not fucking breaking and entering!”

“Trust me,” Eren glances at him, smiling. And while he tries to, Levi doesn’t grab for Eren’s shoulder before he kicks the door a second time. The doorknob sags forward, broken by the heel of Eren’s foot. The door swings open, cutting the darkness inside with the gentle lighting from the lobby. He peeks into the office, the silhouette of a leather chair the only distinguishing feature, and only then because of its place in front of the window. “Wait here.”

“ _Eren_ ,” Levi’s voice is a warning and he catches the sleeve of Eren’s jacket between his thumb and forefinger.

“ _Trust_ me,” he repeats, shaking Levi free of his shoulder to take his first step into the office. When silence is his only greeting, he takes another. And another. Levi waits by the doorframe, displeasure evident in the stiffness of his posture, and the moonlight from the window only sours his expression even more—though it doesn’t make him any less beautiful.

Stopping in the center of the room, Eren turns, raising his hand as if reaching out. Levi blinks, baffled, and the unhappiness tucked against his lips changes into something more akin to the concern from before. He lifts his own hand, reaching for Eren and taking a step forward.

(It’s an image that makes his heart quiver inside his chest.)

Time stops there, for a split-second—Levi reaching out toward Eren’s open hand—before it begins to move backwards. Levi takes a step back. The door eases shut. The doorknob settles back into place. And all the while, Eren feels gears inside his head turning slowly in reverse, as if there’s a clock within him somewhere that keeps track of the rewound moments that he triggers.

When he lets go of time and drops his hand, there’s a small headache building behind his eyes. The dimness keeps it at bay, at least, and when he opens office door from the inside, he almost forgets that it’s there. Levi’s face has a habit of doing that to him, he’s noticed—chasing away headaches and tiredness, if not nightmares.

(gunshot in a bathroom. stop. rewind.)

And Levi’s expression is fucking _priceless_. His eyes widen when he sees Eren on the other side of the threshold, the keyring hanging limply in his hand. And then his jaw drops a little and his eyes narrow. And _then_ his knuckles go white as he shakes the keys in Eren’s face, an accusation traveling from the angle of his wrist to the jut of his elbow.

“What the _fuck—_ how did you—you were _just here_.”

“I opened the door,” Eren tells him, stepping aside to let Levi brush past him, his eyes never leaving Eren’s face. “But it wasn’t very neat, so I stayed in here and rewound so that I could let you in. Can’t have Mr. Smith coming in to a broken door. We’d get caught for _sure_.”

Levi doesn’t say anything for a moment. The breeze pushes dead leaves across the sidewalk outside. It’s so silent in the office that he can almost hear them from here—a scrape-rattle-sigh.

And then Levi says, “you really are a fucking superhero, aren’t you?”

Eren feels the smile freeze on his face, feels the headache start a soft drumbeat behind his eyes again. “Sure,” is what he tells him. “But, like, really I’m only _your_ superhero. You’re the only one with the details, not to mention the only one with me on call, not to mention the only one I’d drop my homework for...”

His words ruin the moment, just like he’d intended them to. Levi snorts and rolls his eyes, turning away from him and walking toward the polished desk in front of the window, flicking on the desk lamp beside the computer. He drops into the leather chair gracelessly, pulling himself close to the computer and booting it up.

The smile drops away from Eren’s mouth. “I’m going to check the file cabinets. He seems like the type to keep hardcopies and digital records.”

“Good plan,” Levi speaks almost as an afterthought, after Eren has already chosen a cabinet to open, tucking his sleeve around his fingers to avoid leaving fingerprints and pulling on the handle. There’s no lock on any of the cabinets close by. Eren wonders if that’s why Mr. Smith keeps the one and only copy of his key rather than giving a copy to other staffers to maintain his records. It wouldn’t be surprising—he _is_ meticulous that way.

The top drawer contains the records of students last names A through D. His sleeve-covered fingertips pause on Levi’s file, and he realises just _how_ illegal it is, what they’re doing. These are personal records—it’s no wonder they’re locked inside the principal’s office, where no one can get to them when Mr. Smith isn’t in here to protect them.

He holds his fingers in place for a moment more before he pulls up Levi’s file, flipping it open. It’s thick with misconduct reports—lack of attendance, mostly. But there are two physical altercation reports, hidden away at the back. The read a lot like Eren’s own, at the high school he’d attended in Seattle before being accepted here.  Levi had been shoved by someone, and the report alleges that he’d reacted to something that had been said after that.

(Eren’s jaw aches sometimes from where he’d been hit too hard in a schoolyard brawl.

He knows he started it. But he’s just never been fond of bullies.)

Suspensions had followed both fights, according to the documents, and it was after the second one that Levi had stopped coming back to Blackwell altogether.

“Find anything?” Levi’s voice pulls him out of the file, the back of his neck going warm with shame. He snaps the file closed and replaces it, clearing his throat. The leather chair creaks behind him, Levi’s fervent typing having stopped for a status update.

“No,” he says, going back to flipping through the files. He finds _Church, Farlan_ near the front of the drawer, removing it to rest it on top of the cabinet. “I was, uh.” There’s any number of lies he could say and Levi wouldn’t _really_ be any wiser to them. But he’s never—he’s not ever lied to Levi. Not once in his whole _life_.

(“ _there’s something i have to tell you._ ” Levi’s pickup truck had reeked of cigarettes as Eren had spoken, and the image of Levi bleeding out on the bathroom floor had been fresh in his mind.

The smell made him sick.)

He clears his throat a second time and continues, “I was just admiring your student photo. You looked fucking annoyed.”

Levi, to his surprise, snorts out a soft laugh. “I _was_ fucking annoyed. I hated this place.” A pause and the chair creaks. Eren opens the drawer beneath it to flip through them—E through I. The folders sigh softly as they scrape against the sides of the drawer.

Eren swallows before he breaks the whisper-sigh-silence of the folders. “I wish I’d been here?” He doesn’t know why he says it like a question. It’s not like he’s unsure of it, or anything. But the upward inflection keeps his voice from cracking, maybe. Maybe it makes it easier to laugh off later.

“What?” Levi’s feet thud softly against the floor, chair rattling from the sudden position change. He crosses the distance between them in three quick strides. “Are you okay?” The question feels like it comes out of nowhere. Of _course_ he’s okay, he’s just—he’s just _sorry_.

He considers his own file, one drawer down, before shutting the one in his grip and swallowing, opening the next one—J through M. “I wish I’d been here,” he says again, softly. If there had been dust on any of the files, his breath would have barely disturbed it. But there is none, the folders almost frighteningly clean. “For you, I mean. I wish that I’d—“ He pauses, the words stuck behind his tongue. “I wish I’d never left.”

“Hey,” Levi’s hand rubs at his bicep, gently. It’s so fucking _stupid_ , what Eren’s doing. They’re here to help find Isabel—they’re here to help _Levi_ , and here he is, fussing over some stupid, irrelevant academic file—“Shut up. I don’t wish you’d been here.”

(Eren’s stomach tightens and he feels like he might throw up.)

Levi continues before Eren can change the path of this conversation. He’d fucked up by mentioning it in the first place. Of _course_ Levi wouldn’t wish he’d been here. Eren had left, after all. Why would he want him back? There are other people in the universe, certainly. “I wish I’d been with you, instead. This place is a _shithole_.”

He keeps his fingers curled around the handle of the drawer to keep his hand from shaking. “It really _is_ a shithole, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” A pause. Levi doesn’t stop thumbing soothing circles against his bicep. “What happened isn’t your fault.”

Eren moves his hand to peruse the files once more, when he’s sure his hand will stay still while he does. “What?”

“Moving. Leaving. This whole... thing. None of this is your fault.” The world tips briefly when Levi shakes him sharply, once. “ _Eren_. Look at me.”

He doesn’t move until he pulls the _Magnolia, Isabel_ file from its place in the drawer. Only then does he turn toward Levi, finding his face a mess of—something. His skin is pulled tight over his cheekbones with worry, his grip moving from Eren’s bicep to his shoulder, his fingers almost digging into the bone he finds there.

“Did you want me to tell you you’re pretty?” He tries on a smile that fits like a glove, but Levi doesn’t seem to pay it any mind. “Because I’m sure I can come up with something on the fly.”

“That’s not—“ Levi huffs out a sharp breath, disturbing the hair on his forehead. “I’m glad you’re here now. I’m glad you were here for me, even when you weren’t _here_ , in the Bay. Don’t blame yourself for shit you can’t control, okay? It wasn’t your fault.” Levi pulls the files down from where Eren had rested them atop the filing cabinet, handing them over. “I can’t believe snooping through my file sent you into a crisis.”

“It didn’t send me into a crisis!” Eren defends his honor by shoving Levi gently with his shoulder, his arms holding the files close to his chest. “I’m always in crisis. It just reminded me about how guilty I feel.”

“Not funny,” Levi says, worming between Eren and the filing cabinet to revisit the drawer he'd just closed. He pulls out a file, flipping it open. “You don’t have to be in crisis. You’re here now, I’m with you, you—“ Levi glances up and back down, so quickly Eren almost thinks he imagined it. “It’s fine. And it’s not your fault.”

“Sure.” Eren replies, heading toward the chair that Levi had left behind, shrugging off his backpack and dropping into the seat with a sigh. He sets Farlan’s file beside the keyboard on the desk, careful not to disturb any of the carefully placed decorations. “You found anything so far? On Smith’s computer?”

“Not yet,” Levi tells him, leaning against the filing cabinet as if it had belonged to him the entire time. “I was looking into expenditures and budget allotments to see if maybe there was some investigation into Isabel’s disappearance that he didn’t declare, or something? But then I wanted to check in on you. Better dirt in personal files, you know?”

Eren opens Isabel’s file on his lap, beginning to flip through it slowly. “Yeah.”

The quiet doesn’t last long after it settles between them. Levi breathes out a laugh at something, a sigh of a morning breeze over grass, and he flips a page over in the file in his hands.

“ _Your_ student photo is cute,” Levi says, snickering softly. Eren looks up, arching both eyebrows. Embarrassment tickles the insides of his cheeks. “You smiled and everything.”

“Shut _up_. That’s _irrelevant_.”

Levi shrugs. “Fair is fair. You saw mine. Besides, I _really_ wanted to see your student picture.” He turns another page, humming softly. “ _And_ you’re a nerd. Your GPA is good enough to get you into a college anywhere. I’m so _proud_.”

Eren fights the urge to hide his face behind Isabel’s folder. “Shut _up_! You already _knew_ I was a nerd, you’ve been calling me a nerd since you learned what a nerd _was_.”

Again Levi laughs, this time much louder. “I know, but it’s different seeing it in writing.” Another page gets turned and Levi’s eyes skate across it. “Oh,” and the humour drops out of his voice with no preamble, his eyebrows knitting together. Eren’s getting a little bit tired of seeing him look like that when he’s around. “You didn’t tell me you got into shit, too.”

Oh. “It’s not that big a deal. It was only once or twice, anyway. Someone was getting bullied, I got mad about it, you’re pretty much all of my impulse control.” Eren shrugs, looking back at Isabel’s paperwork and away from Levi’s face so he can stop being looked at like _that_. “Don’t worry about it.”

Levi makes a noncommittal sound, paper shifting in his grip. “Right.”

The drawer opens and shuts without Eren ever having to look up to check on it. Levi’s shadow appears over his shoulder moments later, his arm bearing his weight against the back of the chair. The leather creaks with it.

“She was involved in a lot of stuff,” Eren says, flipping through the few pages contained inside the folder.  “Beautification clubs on campus, design classes, the Vortex club.” Her identification photo had been cute—she’d been grinning wide, her hair done in small pigtails that rest just above her collarbones. She seemed so _happy_. Why would she have run away? “She missed class a lot, though. Like you.”

Levi grunts behind him. “Yeah. We’d hang out at the junkyard. You saw her shit there—doodles on wood, graffiti on cars. That was all her.”

Eren shuts the folder, replacing Farlan’s with hers on the desk and opening it. His identification photo is unimpressive—his hair is unbrushed, not that Eren has any room to talk, and sand-coloured. He looks disinterested, or distracted, maybe. His GPA is also high—all the clubs Isabel had been in, so, too, was Farlan registered with.

All things considered, their files are painfully, almost appallingly, normal.

“There’s nothing here,” Eren says, flipping through Farlan’s information a second time. Isabel’s folder being empty of useful information hadn’t been _shocking_ , not really. Despite her attendance records, she seemed well-liked and generally well-evaluated. But Farlan’s should’ve had at least _one_ misconduct report, from what Eren’s heard. Isabel kept him grounded, sure, but even from what Levi had told him over the past couple years, he didn’t always get along with people well—students and teachers alike.

(“ _he’s lonely_ ,” Levi had said once, while they were on the phone. He’d been sixteen, then. Eren had been a year behind him. “ _i get that_.” He hadn’t meant for the words to sting, but they had. “ _and i want to help._ ”)

“A fucking _waste,_ ” Levi’s breath is an angry hiss against his hair.

“ _No_ ,” Eren shuts the folder and drops it on top of Isabel’s, pushing his free hand through his hair. “I mean there’s _nothing_ here. There should be _something_. Isabel missed classes, sure, but I’m _positive_ Farlan did, too. There’s, like, one attendance write-up in here. That’s not right.”

Levi’s fingers twitch against the arched back of the chair. “What do you mean?”

“Friday can’t’ve been a fluke,” Eren continues, almost as if Levi hadn’t spoken. But his train of thought was going to answer the question anyway. There’s no real need for him to stop to address it on its own. “You don’t just bring a gun and wave it around for no reason. And the way everyone talks about him, he’s got a history of conduct problems—he swings between angry at everything and frustratingly apathetic. And then there’s the shit with the Vortex club and what happened to Christa. That should at least be _somewhere_ in his file—the club is _his_.” Pieces are falling together inside his head.

(blood seeping through thin fingers.)

“Farlan comes from money, right? You said so. _Everyone_ says so. The teachers here talk about how Blackwell is basically funded off of the Church family’s money.” He rubs his fingers across his mouth. They smell of file folders and paper, free of dust. “That’s gotta be why there’s nothing in his file.”

He turns his body in the chair, meeting Levi’s eyes. They’re clouded over with something. “If you were a principal subsisting almost entirely on this kid’s family money, where would you put conduct reports? You have to keep them somewhere, just so you can cover your own ass when shit hits the fan. It’s a natural precaution.”

Levi doesn’t even hesitate. “The computer. Electronic student files.”

It always gets this way when they’re together. It’s like Eren never left.

He turns in the chair, Levi moving to standing beside him instead of behind him. He keeps the sleeve of his jacket tucked over his palm as he navigates Mr. Smith’s desktop, searching the computer’s memory for any variation of _student_ , _files_ , and finally _Farlan Church_.

The last one brings up an electronic copy of the folder on the desk—with some additions. Handwritten notes, journal excerpts, portfolio work from his photography class. It’s all done in black-and-white, all of them isolationist. There are no living things in _any_ of the photos kept in the file.

In the journal entries, Isabel’s name comes up more than once and all of them appear to be after her disappearance. Some of them make more sense than others do, but all of them wonder about what had happened to her after she went into “the lion’s den.”

“What does that mean?” Eren murmurs under his breath. Then, louder, “do you know what that means?”

Levi shakes his head, the sharp light of the computer carving out the hollows of his cheeks and making him look older than he is. “I don’t know,” he says, after a moment. “I don’t know what that means. He never said anything about a lion’s den to me.” His knuckles go white against the edge of the desk, but when he speaks next, his voice is tinged with relief. “ _Finally_. This is something, at least.”

He fishes in his pocket for his phone, disturbing the chair as he does, before holding it up in front of the monitor. The shutter of the phone’s camera clicks as Levi taps the arrow keys, flipping through the unseen contents of the file.

“All we have to do,” another shutter click, another tap of the right-arrow, “is find out what this shit means. We can try and ask, maybe—“

“ _No_.” It comes out sharper than he means it to, his reaction visceral enough to make his stomach ache at the memory of the fucking _bathroom_. “I—we should wait. See what we can find, elsewhere. Kenny’s the security guy here, right? He should have more shit than Smith does. He doesn’t give a shit about legal repercussions the way a principal has to.”

He thinks, for a moment, that Levi might argue. He curls his fingers, preparing to rewind and pretend he’d never said anything at all.

(His head aches at the idea. Eren tells it to stop.)

“You’re right,” Levi says, watching Eren’s face as if he knows what he’s thinking, and for a second he wishes he wasn’t so fucking transparent. “We’ll snoop around the house when we get back.” He turns his head away, taking the pressure off Eren’s chest when his gaze is gone, and closes each and every window that was open before shutting the computer down.

Levi gathers the folders in his arms before cutting off the desk lamp, dropping them in Eren’s backpack gently, for which he’s grateful. His camera has probably settled at the bottom, folded safely and soundly against any light jostling.

The moonlight is the only light in the office once more.

“Come on,” Levi ruffles Eren’s hair gently after the backpack is zipped closed. The gesture makes his skin prickle all the way down the column of his spine. “There’s something else I wanna check out before we leave.”

“What?” Eren shrugs his backpack onto his shoulders, putting the chair back as close to the way they’d found it as he can. “There shouldn’t be anything else here. The office is the place where all the info we need would be.”

“This isn’t for info,” Levi pulls the door shut behind them both, checking the handle to make sure it’s locked. “This is for _fun._ ”

Eren arches both eyebrows. “For fun.”

“For fun,” Levi repeats, beckoning Eren with his fingers. The image makes his heart kickstart, lurching forward to slam against his ribs. “Ever wanted to go for a swim after dark?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Eren says, following after him after they lock the administration lobby behind them as well. They leave the double doors behind, emergency lighting the only thing that breaks the shadows as they head toward the gymnasium. “The swim team is the only group that has, like, regular access.”

Mischief dances across Levi’s face when he glances over his shoulder before he unlocks the double doors to the gym. It’s an expression that Eren finds himself thinking about more often than not. It’s also one that Levi has used his whole life to declare a session of winding down. Stunts like this have a way of lowering his blood pressure, and Eren knows he can’t be the only one who’s been stressed about whatever the fuck is going on in Arcadia Bay.

“Then let’s live a little. I’ll have to put the keys back eventually. And I haven’t been properly on campus since my expulsion.”

He’s always had a hard time saying no to Levi anyway.

This half of the gym reeks of chlorine, the darkness doing nothing to muffle his other senses. Both of them fumble along the wall for light switches, going in opposite directions from one another. It increases their odds of not having to fumble around in the dark forever.

Eren finds a set of light switches first, flicking two of them on and hoping that they only control the inside lights and that he won’t be broadcasting the fact that they’re in here illegally to the entirety of campus. But the only thing that happens is the pool comes alive with light, casting the gym in an oceanic-blue, the ripples reflecting on the walls and the ceiling. They even catch on the windows, waving against the moon outside.

“It’s like being underwater,” Eren breathes, staring up at the ceiling—until the ripples are broken by a shape landing into the water with a loud _crash_.

“It’d be more like being underwater,” Levi says from across the gym, “if you were to actually _get in_.”

Eren snorts softly, walking the edge of the pool to stand at the corner where Levi is resting, his elbows propped against the cement at the edge. Levi’s hair is pushed back from his face and there’s a smile sitting on his lips that’s small and a little fond as he looks up at Eren from his position. Droplets of water trace their way slowly down the ink on his right arm, caressing the colours lovingly.

If he watches long enough, he can picture his fingertips there. The skin would be soft and smooth. The hairs there would tickle, and he could—

“You have thirty seconds before I splash you in your clothes.” Levi cuts his thought off with the gentle threat, the smile growing a little wider when Eren huffs, swinging his backpack from his shoulders to set it farther away from the edge on the chance that Levi makes good on his promise to splash him.

(He rewinds fifteen seconds, just to be safe, just to give himself a little more time.

The headache returns, chiding him for his arrogance. But Levi doesn’t splash him, and that’s the important part.)

“I’m coming,” Eren says, grabbing his camera from where it rests at the bottom. He unfolds it, the moving parts settling into place with practiced ease. “I want to preserve our illegal activity for the rest of our natural lives. That way, we can look back on this moment and be like ‘wow, that was probably really fucking stupid, don’t you think?’”

Levi laughs and his whole body falls into it. His shoulders, the line of his throat, his chest—all of him trembles with it. His hair falls from its smooth ridge, hanging against his eyebrows before he pushes it back with one hand. More water drops shake themselves from his body or hide in the hollow of his collarbones to press against his skin.

He’s so beautiful and it twists Eren’s heart into knots.

(“ _holy shit_ ,” Eren had said under his breath when Levi had met him and his mother at the school to help him unload his shit into his dorm. To Levi, he’d said, “ _your hair is fucking_ green!”

“ _i heard that first part,_ ” his mother had murmured, both of them watching as Levi trotted up toward them, draping his arm casually around Eren’s shoulders the way he’d always had. He smelled of cigarettes and rainwater and the sea.

“ _do you like it?_ ” Levi had asked. “ _i wanted it to be a surprise._ ”)

Eren lifts the camera, centering Levi in the middle of the photo, watching laughter still cling to his body. He snaps a photo, pulling the polaroid from the end when it pops out, shaking it gently. It’s more out of habit than effectiveness, a gesture to keep his hands busy while his heart lurches between the top of his throat and the base of his stomach.

The picture turns out perfect.

“I’m going to prune before you get in,” laughter still tickles at the edges of Levi’s tone. “And then you’ll feel left out when I have to dry off so I don’t turn into a raisin.”

“I’m _coming_ ,” Eren says, shrugging out of his jacket first. He pulls his shirt over his head to drape it over his backpack, toeing off his shoes and socks before pushing his jeans from his hips. He leaves his things beside Levi’s, taking two large strides before leaping into the water beside him.

The smack of his body on the water is muffled as his head goes under, his boxers clinging to his legs almost instantly. But what he can hear is Levi’s swear as the backsplash hits him and it only becomes clearer when he breaks the surface of the water.

“Gotcha,” Eren snickers, shaking out his hair rather than pushing it away from his face.

“I didn’t even _get_ you!” A wave of water hits Eren in the face, followed by Levi’s laughter. He splutters, the taste of chlorine overwhelming everything else as he pushes his body backward, trying to get out of range. Levi follows him, ripples preceding his movement and brushing up against his sternum. Pool water clings to Eren’s eyelashes as he blinks his vision clear, and he finds Levi close enough to touch.

Eren stops moving so suddenly that Levi bumps into him, a soft _oof_ disturbing the water nearest his mouth.

“Already the mighty hero surrenders?” Levi’s eyes catch the reflection of the water and they go from a stormy gray to a deep blue. “The end of your reign is nigh!” Levi bends his arm to swing another wide splash, but there’s something off about it, something just this shy of too slow. If he were trying to get him square in the face again, he would move faster, he would—

Eren catches Levi’s forearm before the water ever gets a chance to be moved forward.

And Levi parts his lips like that’s what he expected all along.

(They’re so close. They’re so close and even though the pool is cold, Levi is _warm_ against him. He’s warm and they’re _so close_ and the proximity is going to kill him. He knows that if he were to just close the distance, if he were to just get it over with and ruin everything, Levi would taste of chlorine.

And if it didn’t work out, well, he could always make sure that Levi never even knew.)

He leans forward, a little. Levi’s head tilts, slightly, and his body turns to meet them, compensating for the position of Eren’s shoulders. They’ve always moved this way—complimentary, each like a star that orbits the other, knowing each other’s gravity like their own. A droplet of water hangs from the tip of Eren’s nose, about to be brushed away by Levi’s as they get closer.

Levi’s breath ghosts against his lips and he won’t shut his eyes. His pupils are wide enough to swallow the clouds of his irises.

Eren inhales the taste of chlorine, and—

There are voices down the hallway that make them both freeze.

“Oh shit,” the words are almost whispered against his lips. The voices only get louder the longer they sit in the water. Eren moves away first, shattering the moment into small enough pieces that both of them could forget about it if they wanted to.

(That’s a lie, of course. It would be impossible for Eren to forget how close they’d just gotten.)

Levi follows after him not even a second later, both of them pulling themselves out of the water against the edge of the pool. Shaking themselves dry is the best they can do as they pull their dry clothes over their sopping underwear, Eren pulling his backpack onto his shoulders before he can even shrug on his jacket.

He settles on folding it over his arm, dragging Levi into one of the locker rooms with him as the double doors on the other end of the gym bang open. People are yelling at one another—though it sounds like only two. So it could be worse, probably. There could be, like, a whole _squad_ of police people after them, which would make things infinitely more difficult.

“Back door,” Levi hisses softly. “If we go around this way, there’s a back door and we can just make our way around the building and get the _fuck_ out of here.”

“Fun, you said,” Eren whispers back, letting Levi go to follow him through the locker room, peering around corners to see if the coast is clear. So far, the glimmer of flashlights have stayed solidly out of their range, but it doesn’t stop Eren’s vision from tunneling nervously. If they get caught with these files, Eren would surely be expelled. But Levi would be _arrested._ He doesn’t belong on campus anymore, so—

“Stop panicking.” Eren bumps into Levi’s back, distracted by his racing thoughts. “I can hear you thinking from here.” Levi peeks around another corner, Eren standing slightly to do the same. They barely catch one of the—officers? Campus police?—take the corner into the locker room where they’d entered, the other making their way into the one across the pool.

Levi makes a break for the windowless back doors, keys already in hand. Eren doesn’t hesitate to follow him.

The sound the door makes, however, is too loud, and shouting follows them as the door shuts behind them.

“ _Levi_ ,” Eren feels his throat close, his voice a wheeze. “Come _on_.”

“Hold _on_ a second, Jesus Christ.” His hands are shaking, making it difficult to slot the keys into place to lock the double doors behind them. He manages only barely, the door slamming with the weight of a person trying to get through on the other side. It’s only then that Levi makes a break for it, grabbing Eren’s hand as he does.

(Their fingers lace almost perfectly, as if they’d done this a thousand times.

They haven’t, of course. But the thought is nice.)

A police car sits inside one of the spaces of the parking lot that Levi had chosen. His isn’t the _only_ other vehicle there, but surely it’ll be suspicious if it’s gone. Surely this is where they get caught, trying to escape. Surely—

Eren opens the driver side door, leaping in and crawling over the gearshift for Levi to yank the door closed as he follows. The key is in the ignition before either of them have a chance to buckle up, and if he’s being honest, Eren’s relatively sure that he wouldn’t’ve been able to get his hands to cooperate with him even if he’d tried to participate in the first rule of automobile safety.

His head hits the seat when Levi backs out, the tires screeching against the pavement, and he has to hold onto the door to avoid falling in Levi’s lap as he takes  a turn much faster than it ought to have been taken. The truck bounces as it hits the road, the too-cold air freezing against his still-wet skin as it rushes in through the open window. He doesn’t make any move to shut it.

Eren only speaks when he’s sure that no lights or sirens are going to follow them from the school, far out of view of the rearview mirror. “Holy shit,” is all that manages to come out.

Levi doesn’t do much better. “Holy _shit_ ,” he agrees.

But for some reason, they’re both smiling at each other. For some reason, it feels like a victory. For some reason, it’s impossible to look away from Levi’s profile, even after his attention goes back to the road in front of them.

“Home?” Eren says.

Levi’s smile gets a little wider, the moonlight catching on his teeth. “Home.”

-

The rest of the drive home had been quiet, nothing but the wind through the open windows disturbing the silence between them. Levi isn’t sure if it was because they were both still winding down from their close encounter with the police, or if it was simply a condition of the late time of night.

Or, maybe, it was a way to avoid talking about what had almost happened in the pool.

(He had felt Eren sigh against his lips. His breath had been warm and he’d smelled of chlorine, just like Levi must have.

He’d never wanted to taste pool water so badly.)

Levi parks the car in the driveway, noting that Kenny’s car is, once again, missing. He could be on an investigative roadtrip, as he’s been so commonly taking since Levi’s mother’s death, or he could be camping out at the school, trying to uncover some deep and dark secret that he’s almost a hundred percent sure the old brickwork is hiding.

He might not be wrong, certainly. But it doesn’t make Levi hate his fucking guts any less. And, if he _had_ been on campus, he’s infinitely grateful that Kenny wasn’t the one who’d caught them. Eren would’ve been reported to the police. Levi would’ve had something much worse waiting for him, becoming the focus of Kenny’s fervor—the pinpoint of his wrath.

Eren hops out of the car almost before Levi cuts off the ignition, grabbing his backpack and swinging it in a gentle-enough arc to slip back onto his shoulders without ruining the camera at the bottom. He waits for Levi by the front door, watching him from beneath the porch light, his hair sticking up in every possible direction now that it’s had the opportunity to dry.

He looks _ridiculous_.

(But he’s _gorgeous_.)

Levi uses his own keys to unlock his front door, finding himself absolutely exhausted of having to handle Kenny’s for the past hour or so. They don’t feel right in his hands, too sharp and heavy. There’s a key for every possible lock that he’d have to confront at the school, and all that fact does is give Levi chills. How paranoid do you have to be to have a key for every fucking office at a school you barely even work at anymore?

Eren is the one who flicks the light on, casting the entryway in a soft yellow glow as the both of them shed their shoes by the door. It’s nice to find the place organically quiet, as it always is when Kenny’s not around, rather than the artificially induced silence that he always demanded without fail. He always had _listening_ to do, he said. He couldn’t afford having Levi doing anything that made _noise_.

It had always made Levi wonder if their neighbours knew that they were probably being overheard as they went about whatever their nightly routines happened to be. They probably didn’t. After all, who expects that sort of thing?

They make it halfway to the stairs before Eren says, “can I shower?”

“What?” Levi blinks, continuing too more steps before glancing over his shoulder to watch Eren move. His jeans are soaked through where his boxers had touched.

“Shower. Can I call dibs on the first shower.” He smiles, and it’s small, as if Eren thinks Levi wouldn’t notice that he looks a little bit more tired than usual because the smile isn’t as wide. “I’ve got a headache and I’m hoping the hot water will help.”

“Yeah,” Levi tells him, feeling a frown pull at his own mouth. “Of course. Come on, I’m sure I’ve got a pair of sweatpants that’ll fit you. I think I took one from your place last time I was up there. Sorry. I just threw them in with my shit on accident.”

(It hadn’t been as much of an accident as he’d just implied, not really. But he’d wanted something of Eren to take back to Arcadia Bay with him, and the pants were the easiest thing to get away with. They were something that made it easier to think of Eren, when they weren’t in the same place.

He likes the way the hems pool around his ankles.)

“Oh,” Eren hums, following Levi up the stairs. Pool water squishes between his toes. He fucking _hates_ wet socks. “Are they the gray ones? I’d been looking for those, but I just assumed they’d wandered off at home, or something. I was waiting for them to turn up again.”

“Those are the ones,” and he’s not ashamed about it, either. “Sorry. At least you know you’ll have something that fits to sleep in, though.”

Eren laughs as Levi pushes his bedroom door open. The hinges whine softly and Levi stows that information away to deal with later. He’s sure there’s some grease in the garage, outside of Kenny’s little listening studio, and he can probably fix it with no trouble at all.

Eren catches this light switch, too. Levi knows his way around his room, even in the dark, but the light helps and Eren doesn’t know where Levi keeps all his shit on a daily basis. Yet, anyway. The way this week has been going—the way things have been going since Eren got back in Arcadia Bay—he’ll know his way around the entire house with the lights off.

That thought makes Levi’s heart lurch.

“Shampoo and shit is all lined up in the bathroom down the hall.”

“I know where your bathroom is,” Eren says, quietly, and the smile on his mouth stops the lurching in his heart dead in its tracks. Instead, it scrabbles at his ribcage, aching to get as close as possible to Eren. And he’s not even that far _away_ , he’s just—he’s just not as close as Levi wants him to be. Not as close as they had been, not even an hour before. “And I know where all your stuff is, too. Don’t worry about it.”

“Let me at least get your pants first, know-it-all.” Levi takes a step back before turning to head toward his drawers. Eren’s sweatpants are in the bottom drawer, where they’ve been since Levi had taken them months ago. He pulls them out, the worn fabric soft in his hands, and he tosses them across the room, into Eren’s waiting hands.

“Thanks. I’ll be right back.” He doesn’t shut the door as he leaves, and the hallway light comes on, spreading across his floor. It reaches across his bed, stopping just short of reaching Levi still crouched on the other side of it. He doesn’t move from his place until he hears the shower start up, the water rushing through the old pipes and rattling inside the walls.

Only then does he flop onto his bed with a quiet groan, squeezing his eyes shut against the memory of the pool, of how close they’d been, of how their hips slotted together perfectly, as if they’d been made for each other.

And they’d been _so_ close to a fucking kiss.

(Levi’s lips would’ve parted beneath Eren’s, warm and chapped and tasting of the pool. Their tongues would’ve met and it would’ve felt like they’d done this a thousand times, even though they’d never kissed before. It would feel natural and miraculous, like everything always has with them. It would’ve been breathtaking and perfect.

But it _hadn’t happened_.)

Levi’s fingers brush against the top of Eren’s backpack, probably left there when Levi’s back had been turned to get his sweats, or something. But either way, it’s beneath his fingers, and it gives him something else to think about for five seconds that isn’t how much he’d wanted that almost-kiss.

He pushes himself upright, pulling the backpack with him and opening it up. Isabel’s file is the first he pulls out, followed by Farlan’s, and he opens both, spreading them over the blankets. There really _is_ very little inside them, barring standard grade reports and attendance notifications. It doesn’t make any _sense_ , any of this. There should be more info—Isabel wouldn’t just disappear. And despite what had happened Friday, Farlan would _never_ hurt her.

So there’s no way that Farlan had anything to do with this. But he has to know something—the way he was speaking in the bathroom means that he had to know _something_.

But Levi doesn’t know what the _fuck_ that could possibly be.

Jesus _Christ_ he craves a cigarette.

He crawls off the bed, stretching, and heads toward his desk. He knows he has a pack of cigarettes in the leftmost drawer, and it’s less than half-empty. _Perfect_. He tugs on the handle, finding it exactly where he’d left it, and the box feels comfortable in his hand.

For a moment, anyway.

(He thinks of Eren’s face in the pickup truck three days ago. Levi had pulled out a cigarette, had lit it, had even inhaled smoke into his lungs before Eren had spoken. And when he had, he’d sounded small and he wouldn’t make eye contact. It hadn’t been shocking. He’d just confessed to being able to rewind _time_ , and the only people that had been around to hear about it had been Eren, Levi himself, and the lighthouse looming in the setting sun.

“ _that shit’ll kill you, you know?_ ”

Levi had ground the cigarette out in one of the cupholders almost instantly.)

He crushes the box in his grip, tossing the pack of cigarettes away.

It makes him lick his lips. Makes his mouth lonely. Makes him crave something to breathe into his lungs and breathe out, makes him taste chlorine on his tongue. Makes him _want_ —

“You’re good to shower.” Levi almost peels out of his own skin. He should’ve _heard_ Eren enter the room. The floorboards squeak like nobody’s fucking business, and there’s no way he knows how to step on them without making them creak. _Levi_ doesn’t even know how to do that.

(But he’d blinked and Eren had disappeared, in the administration office. He’d just been there one moment, behind Erwin Smith’s door the next, and Levi hadn’t known. Everything Eren had done to show off was weird, coincidental—but that had been _frightening_. There’d been a moment Levi hadn’t seen, a possible timeline Levi hadn’t even known about, and Eren is the only one to have to carry the weight of these impotent futures.

It makes his stomach ache. As if he’d been shot.)

“Sorry,” Eren continues speaking when Levi doesn’t turn around. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. Sorry.”

Levi doesn’t know what Eren’s apologising for. He hopes that it’s not the kiss-that-didn’t-happen.

“I was just distracted.” He toes his trashcan underneath the desk, hoping Eren doesn’t see the cigarettes he’d just thrown out. He’d feel guilty about that, probably. Eren’s always felt guilty about stupid shit like that. “But I’m going to shower real quick, okay?”

“Yeah,” Eren’s stooped over the folders, though he doesn’t sift through them again. He gathers them up, shutting both folders and stacking them together. And then he steps around Levi’ their elbows brushing, and sets it on the desk.

It takes a moment for him to keep speaking.

(He doesn’t smell like chlorine anymore. He smells like Levi, instead.

His stomach twists.)

“Don’t worry,” Eren says, soft enough to get lost as the pipes settle now that the water’s turned off. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll help you. I’ll figure it out.”

 _This_ is what gets him about Eren-fucking-Jaeger. He’s always so—he always makes _everyone_ else’s problems his own. He handles everyone else’s issues, gathers everyone else to him like a goddamn _mother hen_ , and—that’s why he’s handling Christa the way he is. That’s why he’s throwing himself into this case. He’s never been able to just—he has to take on _everything_ himself.

But who the fuck looks out for him?

“It’s okay, Levi.”

Levi clears his throat and turns to regard Eren fully. “How’s the headache?”

“Oh. It’s—“ Eren shrugs. “I’m fine. I’ll see you when you’re done showering, okay?” He bumps against Levi the way he always had, a casual vying for affection. Levi bumps back against him, just as gently, and for a moment, the urge to press a kiss to Eren’s shoulder is overwhelming enough to drown out every other thought in his head.

But it passes and he steps away, grabbing his own clothes to sleep in. He wishes he’d kept Eren’s sweats for himself.

Eren watches him go, that same small smile sitting on his lips that he’d had before he’d headed down the hallway. Levi wonders how many times he’s watched him walk away, or if this is the first. He knows what that feels like, watching someone walk away—and he knows that Eren’s waiting for the moment when Levi won’t come back.

It’s a foolish thought. But Levi’s had that exact one before.

The water scalds his back when he turns it on, pulling the shower curtain closed and catching the hint of chlorine when he breathes in. He’s certain that Eren would taste that way, if he’d kissed him like he’d wanted to.

If he’d kissed him like _Levi_ had wanted him to.

(“ _i dare you to kiss me_ ,” Levi will say tomorrow morning, when sleep still hangs around Eren like a fog. The morning sun crawls through the blinds, tucking itself against his skin like a caress. He’s almost too beautiful to look at.

“ _i dare you to kiss me,_ ” he will say.

And Eren will oblige him.)


End file.
